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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Vintage Wallpaper

Did you know that there are 52 PAGES of vintage wallpaper on Etsy?

True story.

I often lust after the papers at secondhand rose, but right now I'm working with a client with a couple of DIYs in mind, including sprucing up a seen-better-days Danish credenza with a little wallpaper, so I need fun, inexpensive paper in small quantities. Etsy is not letting me down.

In browsing, I was struck by how modern some of these look today, in that old "everything old is new again way." Observe:

Now, certainly none of these are exact. But there is a certain spirit carrying forward, wouldn't you say?

Would you ever hang a vintage paper? Does it feel fresh to you, or do you think these patterns are showing their age?

Now if only I could find the paper from the nursery in our house in the 70s. Two walls read "rainbow" over and over in rainbow colored bubble letters, running in stripes on the diagonal. (I'll give you a minute to picture that.) The other two walls had little houses with silhouetted trees around them, and a rainbow over each and every one.

3 comments:

I wouldn't wallpaper my house with it, but I would love to use some of those vintage patterns for an art piece. :D

My grandparents bought their home in the 40s and wallpapered the dining room several times. My grandma just put the new paper over the old. Sometime in the 90s my mom helped her strip it, and it was fascinating seeing the layers of retro paper. I think she had 5 different wallpapers!

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I am a wife, mother, writer, and decorator, though some days not in that order. I have been blogging about my daughters since 2007 at clioconfidential.blogspot. When we moved to our "forever" home in Minneapolis in 2010 and the decorating posts started to take over, I started Love Your Space to capture my home design obsession and share my projects. You can email me at heatherjoypeterson[at]gmail[dot]com, or leave a comment here. I'd love to hear from you!